1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surge absorber that protects various equipment from a surge to be generated by lightning or the like and is used for preventing accident from happening.
2. Description of the Related Art
A surge absorber is connected to a portion at which electronic equipment for communication devices such as telephones, fax machines, modems, and the like is in contact with a communication line, and a portion such as power lines, antennas, CRT drive circuits, and the like that is vulnerable to an electric shock due to abnormal overvoltage (surge voltage) such as lightning surge, static electricity, or the like in order to prevent electronic equipment or a printed circuit board mounted on electronic equipment from being damaged due to a thermal damage or ignitions caused by an abnormal overvoltage.
Conventionally, as a surge absorber having good responsibility, Patent Document 1 proposes a surge absorber that employs a surge absorbing element having a micro gap. The surge absorber is a discharge-type surge absorber in which so-called “micro gap” is formed on the circumferential surface of a ceramic component that is a cylindrical insulating component provided with conductive coating, a surge absorbing element having a pair of cap electrodes on the opposite ends of the ceramic component is housed in a glass tube together with a discharge control gas, and a sealing electrode having lead wires on the opposite ends of the cylindrical glass tube is sealed under a high-temperature heating.
On the other hand, Patent Document 2 proposes a discharge-type surge absorbing element having a carbon trigger line in which a plurality of discharge electrodes consisting of rod-like discharge bases are arranged opposing one another across a discharge gap, and is then sealed in a gastight container together with discharge gas. In the discharge-type surge absorbing element in which a lead terminal connected to the lower end of the electrode base is lead outside the gastight container, a trigger electrode made of carbon lines is provided on the dielectric substrate base surface within the gastight container in a micro-spaced apart relation to each of the discharge electrodes.